“But you don’t look autistic.”
It’s a sentence that many autistic adults have heard at some point. Sometimes it’s said with genuine surprise. Sometimes it’s intended as a compliment. Sometimes it comes from someone who simply doesn’t understand what autism can look like.
But when you’ve spent years wondering why certain things seem harder for you than they seem to be for everyone else, hearing “but you don’t look autistic” can be surprisingly complicated.
Because what does autistic actually look like? And perhaps more importantly, how much can we really know about someone’s neurodivergence by looking at them?
That’s what I’m exploring in the first episode of Season 2 of That AuDHD Teacher.
There isn’t one way to look autistic
I think one of the biggest problems with the way autism is understood is that many of us grow up with a very narrow idea of what an autistic person looks like.
Perhaps we picture someone who avoids eye contact, doesn’t speak, visibly stims, struggles to communicate, becomes distressed by changes or has very obvious support needs. Those experiences can absolutely be part of autism. But they aren’t the complete picture.
Autistic people are individuals. They have different personalities, different communication styles, different support needs, different interests and very different life experiences.
Some autistic people are highly verbal. Some have careers. Some live independently. Some have families. Some travel. Some have university degrees. Some are teachers, doctors, business owners, artists or researchers. And some people can do all of those things while still experiencing significant challenges related to being autistic.
The fact that someone’s autism isn’t immediately obvious to you doesn’t mean that it isn’t there. It means that you can’t see everything someone experiences from the outside.
Looking fine isn’t the same as feeling fine
This is something I’ve thought about a lot since being diagnosed AuDHD. There can be a huge difference between what someone is capable of doing and what something actually costs them.
Someone might be able to go to work every day. They might be able to teach a class, attend meetings, socialise, answer emails, manage a conversation and appear completely calm. And then they might get home and have absolutely nothing left.
From the outside, you might see someone who is functioning. That doesn’t necessarily mean you can see the energy, preparation, masking and recovery that happened behind the scenes.
I’ve become increasingly aware of how often we treat functioning as though it is binary. You can either do something or you can’t. But that’s not really how human beings work.
You can do something and find it exhausting. You can do something when you have enough capacity but not when you’re already overwhelmed. You can manage something occasionally but not sustainably. You can do something very well and still find it incredibly difficult. And you can become extremely good at something because you’ve spent years learning how to compensate.
That last one is particularly important. Being good at something doesn’t necessarily mean it has always been easy.
Autism masking
Masking is one of the reasons autism can be missed, particularly in people who are diagnosed later in life. Masking can involve consciously or unconsciously adapting your behaviour to fit what is expected of you.
You might watch other people and copy how they interact. You might learn when you’re supposed to make eye contact. You might rehearse conversations. You might develop scripts for social situations. You might learn which facial expressions are expected. You might force yourself to tolerate sensory experiences that are overwhelming. You might become very good at appearing calm even when you’re not feeling calm at all. And sometimes masking becomes so automatic that you don’t even realise you’re doing it.
That’s one of the things that can make looking back on your childhood and earlier life so complicated after a late autism diagnosis. You’re not necessarily discovering that you’ve suddenly become autistic. You’re discovering a different explanation for things that have been happening throughout your life.
“But you have a job”
I’ve heard versions of this argument in relation to autism and ADHD. You have a degree. You have a career. You live independently. You have friends. You travel. You communicate well. You seem confident. Therefore, how could you possibly be autistic?
But achieving things doesn’t cancel out neurodivergence. In fact, sometimes achievement can make neurodivergence harder for other people to recognise. Because people see the outcome without seeing everything that went into getting there.
They don’t necessarily see the years of masking. They don’t see the exhaustion. They don’t see the strategies. They don’t see the failed attempts before the successful one. They don’t see the recovery afterwards. They don’t see what happens when several difficult things happen at once and the systems that normally keep you functioning start to fall apart.
And this is something I think about a lot as a teacher. Teaching can make you very good at appearing capable. You’re constantly responding to other people. You’re reading the room. You’re adapting. You’re remembering information. You’re switching between tasks. You’re communicating. You’re managing unexpected situations. You’re often expected to appear calm and regulated even when there is a lot happening around you.
So yes, an AuDHD teacher can stand in front of a group of children and look completely capable. That doesn’t tell you what is happening internally.
Invisible doesn’t mean insignificant
When we talk about autism as an invisible disability, I think it’s important to clarify what we mean. It doesn’t mean that autistic people never have visible differences. Some people do.
It means that many of the things someone struggles with aren’t necessarily obvious just by looking at them. You can’t necessarily see executive dysfunction. You can’t see sensory overload. You can’t see the mental preparation someone has done before entering a social situation. You can’t see how much energy it takes someone to maintain eye contact or conversation. You can’t see the recovery that happens afterwards. You can’t see someone’s internal experience simply by looking at their face. And I think that’s why the phrase “but you don’t look autistic” can feel so strange.
Because sometimes what the person is really saying is: “You don’t look like my idea of an autistic person.” Those aren’t the same thing.
Late autism diagnosis
For people diagnosed later in life, there can be an additional layer to all of this. You may have spent years developing ways to cope without knowing why you needed them. You may have thought certain things were personality quirks. You may have believed you were disorganised, lazy, overly sensitive, dramatic, difficult or simply not trying hard enough. You may have assumed everyone found certain things difficult and that they were just better at dealing with them than you were.
Then you learn about autism or ADHD. Suddenly, some of those experiences begin to make sense. But getting an explanation doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone around you understands it too. And that can be difficult.
You can finally understand yourself differently while still having people question you. You can know that something is difficult for you while someone else says: “But you managed it last time.” And perhaps you did. That doesn’t necessarily mean you can do it every time.
Our capacity changes. Our environments change. Our sensory load changes. Our stress levels change. Our available energy changes. Being able to do something once doesn’t mean it is effortless or endlessly repeatable.
What I wish I’d understood earlier
If I could go back and tell my younger self something, it would probably be this: You don’t have to look like someone’s idea of autism for your experience to be real.
I think that’s something many late-diagnosed autistic and AuDHD adults have to learn. You don’t have to fit every stereotype. You don’t have to relate to every autistic person. You don’t have to have the same traits as someone else. And you don’t have to prove that you’re struggling enough before you’re allowed to take your own experiences seriously.
There isn’t one way to be autistic. There isn’t one way to be AuDHD. And there isn’t one way to experience the world.
Season 2 of That AuDHD Teacher
This episode begins Season 2 of That AuDHD Teacher, and I’m really looking forward to where this season is going.
Season 1 focused a lot on understanding AuDHD, including autism and ADHD, masking, burnout, executive functioning, rejection sensitive dysphoria, hidden curriculum and the assessment process.
Season 2 is going to move further into what happens when you actually start living with that understanding of yourself.
I’ll be talking about topics including PDA, meltdowns and shutdowns, alexithymia, late-diagnosis grief, feeling behind in life, transitions, workplace accommodations and being an AuDHD teacher. I’ll also be bringing some guests onto the podcast, because I want to hear more than just my own perspective.
There are so many different ways to experience neurodivergence, and hearing other people’s stories can be just as valuable as learning about the terminology.
Listen to the episode
In this episode of That AuDHD Teacher, I go deeper into what it means to be autistic or AuDHD when your neurodivergence isn’t immediately obvious to other people.
Listen to “But You Don’t Look Autistic | The Reality of Invisible AuDHD” wherever you listen to podcasts.
If you’re new to That AuDHD Teacher, you might also want to listen to my episode about my own autism assessment, where I talk about the experience of going through the assessment process and what it was like to finally have answers.
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